


Live

by my_thestral



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Love, brave!Ron, happy/sad ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 14:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_thestral/pseuds/my_thestral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron is desperate and angry after Harry's death... but has Harry truly abandoned him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at Writcraft's private LJ for Weasley appreciation meme - I did get the courage together in the end! It's the first thing I've ever written (or posted, oh, my!) and consequently rough around the edges. Not beta-ed, because I don't know too many people around community who'd enjoy Ron/Harry (yes, Ron comes first, it's all about Ron for me! ;)), so please don't bash me too hard, English is not my mother tongue. Enjoy (if you can)!
> 
> Disclaimer: The wonderful world of Harry Potter belongs to the wonderful mind of JK Rowling, I play for fun, not profit...

There were no traces of tears left on Ron's face when he apparated to the no. 4 Privet drive, though his red-rimmed eyes still betrayed the sorrow he endured. It was still there, this sorrow, but now it was safely locked under his frozen surface, certain to erupt again in the lonely moments, when he fell prey to the worst of his weaknesses.  
  
But this was not the time.  _Right now_ , he had a job to do. One job that would surely doom him forever and send him straight to spending the remainder of his days in Azkaban... but he was past caring. He was already locked in his own personal prison, his private little hell staged by the most feared evil wizard of all times - now nothing  more than particles of ashen air - and a certain fool named Harry Potter.  
  
Yeah,  _that_ Harry, who had been Ron's best mate for as long as he could remember - and sometimes he had trouble remembering anything that happened before Harry entered his life, as if his life was not worthy of writing memories that didn't involve the raven-haired youth. That same Harry who was so  _hell-bent_  on saving the entire wizarding world that he never considered anything but putting his life on the line to do just that. The stupid crazy self-sacrificing Harry who apparently thought so little of his friends that he would not ask for their help, but decided to sneak away _in the middle of the bloody night_ to enter the final confrontation alone, not ever caring about those whose lives will be buried in the same casket that held his body.

For Voldemort has fallen, but so has the legendary young wizard and with him, all of Ron's hopes and dreams, his life as he knew it. He might as well have been laid to rest next to his best mate. Born in the world without Harry left Ron feeling dazed and raw and hurt and angry, oh,  _so very angry_!!! Bloody  _livid_ , he was! If Harry hadn't met his premature death by the echo of Voldemort's final curse, Ron might have finished him off himself, so pissed off he was at his mate! How dare he!? How dare he take this final journey without him, how dare he enter the exciting world behind the veil, leaving him here alone and drained and nothing but a shadow of a man he once was meant to be. Him and his  _bloody hero-complex_! Selfish git!  
But it wasn't his fault, Ron knew. If Harry wasn't raised thinking that his life was worthless unless he was being useful, he would perhaps have thought twice about letting his friends linger behind, while he sneaked off to his death!  
  
And that's why Ron was here, at no. 4 Privet Drive, to repay a final debt, to punish those who raised Harry to be such a self-dooming troll-of-a-friend; those, who were ultimately responsible for his life without Harry, for his worthless pointless aimless existence without the wiry little boy that captured Ron's heart and let it bleed empty. It was entirely their fault!  
  
If they had loved him and not isolated him and forever use him as a tool to their comfort, making him think that somehow he had to pay for being allowed to live off their scraps, then maybe Harry Potter would have learnt that he needn't be forever alone when times got hard, maybe his foolish, selfless, compassionate, loving Harry would have asked him to be by his side when he had to face his biggest challenge. But they didn't and he didn't and Ron was now alone and determined to pull the original evil out by the roots.

~  
  
He whispered a silent  _Alohamora_! and entered the house unnoticed. He stopped in the hallway for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed by a rush of memories brought forward by the house, he'd only seen on briefest of occasions. Perhaps it was the slightly gapping door of the cupboard, where Harry spent a decade of his sad existence, or the rumble of TV coming from the living room where the family was gathered - but suddenly in his mind's eye Ron could see the ghost of a skinny little boy, starved enough to overcome his fear, tip-toeing towards the fridge to get what little he could…  
  
No wonder Harry was such a fearless little thing - even as a child he'd been standing up to the world when the world wanted nothing else but for him to lie down and die. And surviving, always surviving. Except this time. This time, when surviving meant he could be happy, perhaps for the first time in his life, Harry didn't make it. And it was killing Ron to know he will never be able to show him what care-free existence meant and how to enjoy life without fears and shadows and expectations... and it had all started in this evil house.  
  
Now that Ron was here, he was even more determined to finish it all. He knew he wasn't thinking straight - _of course he bloody well wasn't thinking straight_ , it was merely two days after Harry's funeral, he’d be surprised if he’d be able to think straight in two decades from that awful day! - but he knew that he needed to finish this and then find a way to finish himself. Or let the Azkaban do it. Whichever came first.

So he straightened himself up to his frightening height and unceremoniously burst the door to Dursley's living-room open, using his foot rather than magic. It felt good to be physical. It felt good to scare the living daylights out of them. It felt  _brutally_  good and it made him feel alive for the first time since he saw Harry's crumpled body.  
  
He fed on the fear he saw registered on their faces. He was a sight to remember even without a wand in his out-stretched hand. Harry, his poor beloved stupid, stupid Harry, always joked that he could stop a train with his flaming hair – but tonight his messy red mane was just a background to the fierce blue eyes, clenched teeth and a threatening frame worth of a grizzly bear. With his tall posture and muscled form, courtesy of the tough times he had to endure during war, he was a heart-stopping man, even when he was at his most playful disposition, but this time he was nowhere near playful. Not even on the same side of a spectre. Right now he was downright petrifying.  
  
Harry's uncle Vernon almost choked on his snack, while Petunia Dursley produced something between a scream and a squeak and the large form of Dudley Dursley simply froze onto the spot with his mouth gawking open. Ron was determined not to let himself be distracted. Without a word he motioned them all to move closer to each other - not that he really felt that they could do something to stop him in his track, shell-shocked as they were, but it was a remainder of his days on the field with Harry when caution could mean the difference between life and death.  
  
"You're that.. Weaselby boy, aren't you?" Petunia Dursley finally proclaimed in a high-pitched voice as if naming him was somehow going to disarm him. He didn't bother to form a reply as he was busy weighing his options on how to make this the least messy. Ron has seen blood and bodies enough to last him a life-time and beyond; and even though he came here with a purpose to add three more to his own trail, he did not enjoy a thought of wreaking havoc of bleeding corpses and torn limbs.  
  
But then Dudley Dursley finally woke from his stupor, stretched his fat arm and pointed at something behind Ron's back: "C-c-could... y-y-you take that, now that y-y-you're here?"  
  
Ron almost smiled as in " _nice try_!" - except that it wasn't. It was lame and pathetic and something in a stuttering scared voice of an obese young man made Ron think that there might actually be something worth looking at behind his back. But still...  _caution_...  
  
He casually whispered  _Incarcerous_! and watched the stunned family being bound by thick black ropes that flew out of his wand. When their yelps of surprise subsided, he was finally satisfied with his work and turned around to see what Dudley Dursley had been so anxious to point out. And  _froze_. And stopped breathing.  
  
There, on the wall of no. 4 Privet Drive, right there was a portrait of Harry, his Harry, smiling at him so sweetly and softly and lovingly that it stopped his heart and left him bare of any words and sane thoughts.  
  
"It just appeared a few days ago," he heard Vernon Dursley speak in the background, not fully registering what he was saying. "We can't get it to move! We've tried every blasted thing, I even tried setting it on fire, but the bloody wizarding cartoon just poured water out of its frame so fast that we had to replace the carpet and beg it to stop so that the neighbours wouldn't notice!"  
  
"And it talks, too!" added Petunia, comically annoyed, given her current situation. "It keeps on calling your name!  _'Call Ron!'_  it says. Over and over again.  _'Call Ron, call Ron, call Ron!'_  It's driving everyone positively mad, I tell you!"  
  
Of course the portrait spoke. It was magical, after all. In fact, it was the most beautiful piece of magic Ron has every seen in his life. It was set at the background of the lake at Hogwarts, placid and absolutely splendid under the sunlight, which was one of Harry’s favourite places to hang out while he was still alive. But it wasn’t just the background that made it stunning. It was also the young man it portrayed.  
  
For the portrait was not of the small child-Harry that once lived in this house, it was of Harry,  _his_  Harry as he was right before he went into that cursed night to fight his final battle all alone. Besides the heart-stopping smile, there was even a hint of innocent mischief in those beautiful green eyes glowing softly, as if Harry knew how stunned his best friend would be after discovering what he'd left behind. Ron found it irresistible.  
  
Completely mesmerized he approached the picture to drink in every detail of the beloved face he would forever have to live without and at that moment Harry's eyes looked directly at him and his smile made them shine like a pair of emeralds: "Hello, there... Ron. You came."  
  
And Ron, unable to manage a single solid thought, hastily made a step that separated him from this unexpected treasure, took a firm hold of the frame and disapparated, never sparing a thought of what would become of the Dursleys he left behind in their bonds.

~  
  
He apparated straight into his little room at the Burrow, as if his sub-conscience remembered it will be abandoned for the day. His mother and father were busy with funeral arrangements for Fred, Ginny was keeping company and serving as a ward to George who went down right suicidal after his twin-brother had perished and Charlie has taken Bill to St. Mungo's hospital for his monthly dose of Wolfsbane potion as it was soon to be " _that time of the month_ " again.  
  
Hermione was expected later that day to help Ron clear his stuff and move it to the flat she hastily rented for them once it was clear that the Burrow simply held too many painful memories of Harry for Ron to pull himself together. Ron had no heart to tell her he won't be going anywhere, she would find out soon enough.  
  
But Ron wouldn't have cared even if she was there, even if the entire Burrow was full to the brim with people, buzzing around as they did in the best of times. All he cared about was holding in his arms something of Harry, something so precious and intoxicating that he never ever wanted to let go. The bright colours of Harry's raven hair and his brilliant eyes and - oh, that smile! - made Harry look so real and alive, that Ron could almost feel him breathing. In fact, he was prepared to swear on Dumbledore's grave that the little blue vein in the corner of Harry's neck was pulsing with a rush of blood, calling to Ron how very much Harry Potter wanted to live.  
  
Carefully setting the painting - almost 3 feet tall - in the corner of his old room, he went to kneel in front of it like a small child revering the presence of God, all anger vanished, all sanity gone. He simply stared, enchanted, devoted, in love with those lovely features that even death couldn't take away and when he finally stretched his arm to touch Harry, it came to no surprise that the skin was warm and the eyes glowed and that the picture has opened a swirling tunnel between two lives like Tom Riddle's diary once did and Ron was sucked into the portrait with the same force that once drove Harry Potter to cross paths with his life's arch-enemy.  
  
For this time and this world, Ron was no more. And it was alright. Out of time, out of place, he was right where he wanted to be. With Harry.

~

When Hermione found the portrait hours later, her legs gave way.  
  
“ _Oh, Ron…_ ” she whispered and stared at the two faces of her once-best friends in the whole world, positively aglow with happiness. She couldn’t blame Harry, not really, for leaving a piece of himself behind. Nor could she hate Ron for doing what he did, because she saw the depth of his misery and she had, time ago, read his heart better than he did himself. It was just that… she couldn’t follow them this time, not where they went, not even if she wanted to.  
  
It was time to heal the wounds, it was time to live. They had already lost too much. And she had a feeling that she might be walking a very lonely path in life, but when she looked at the two smiling faces, she knew she would always have someone to come home to. She picked up the portrait, poured all her worries and determination in a deep sigh and opened the door to a new life, though perhaps a tad more grey with her favourite shades of green and red gone for good.  
  
"Molly... everyone, I found this..."


End file.
